Alexander Lorentz was born on Valentine's Day 1915 in Brooklyn to working class Dutch immigrants. His father Ferdinand worked as a blacksmith, while his mother Lisbeth worked as a nurse in a public hospital run by the Shriners. As a youth he apprenticed in his father's craft, and was heavily influenced by the physical culture of strongman pioneers such as Eugen Sandow, Monte Saldo, and the Great Maxick. When he turned 16, his father permitted him to join a boxing gym to study the arts of pugilism and fisticuffs, so long as his training did not interfere with his responsibilities in the shop.

One evening in the fall of 1937, at the young age of 22 years, Sascha had left the pub where he'd been drinking with his mates at half past midnight. A light fog had left the cobblestones slick with moisture, and screeching tires alerted him to a taxi careening towards an elderly man. In one reality this would have resulted in a collision that would signal the final inevitable decline of the elder, but this night Alex was present to intervene; he lunged into the street, barely pushing them both from the path of grievous harm. That man was Nikola Tesla and the meeting would prove a fateful turn in both men's life.

Grateful for his rescue, but bruised by the unceremonious tackling, Tesla bade Alex escort him back to his residence at the Hotel New Yorker. Alex was astonished by the trappings of the room, expressing interest and curiosity at the many schematics and strange contraptions haphazardly littered about. Having long since resigned himself to bitterness over his war with Edison, Tesla had all but given up. However his suspicions that the near-miss may have been a hit hired by his rival, combined with the inquisitive curiosity of his unexpected Samaritan, inspired some of the old-fighting spirit that lay dormant within the wizened inventor. He resolved to reopen his laboratory on Houston Street, and took young Lorentz on as his apprentice. The younger man provided much needed vigor and steady hands, as well as a solid foundation in the blacksmithing science of metallurgy.

One night in 1940 the two men were conducting an experiment Tesla had devised to test his theories about the wireless transmission of energy. As the generators thrummed to life, a strange and otherworldly glow lit up the sky, an aurora seen around the globe. Something went awry within the machines and the system began to overload. Alexander raced to the cutoff switch but as soon as he touched it an explosion rocked the lab and an arc of luminous multi chromatic lightning hurled him across the room, knocking him senseless into unconsciousness. When he awoke, he would find himself irrevocably transformed...

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Effects Most Curious and Unexpected

When he came to it quickly became apparent that something had shifted within Sascha. His body was faster, able to chase down even the fastest super cars of the era, possessed of inhuman resilience, and now wholly immune to the ravages of current. Indeed he himself now seemed to generate a significant charge. Moreover he discovered he was possessed of new sight beyond the ken of mortal men. Alexander took it as a sign of something great, and began giving public performances under the moniker "The Human Dynamo."

Meanwhile Tesla tinkered with ways of harnessing the parahuman pugilist's power, crafting a set of copper coiled caestus that encased Sascha's forearms and knuckles with concentrated voltage. Even more impressive was the hand-canon he presented his apprentice that channeled and amplified the latent electricity within him into a truly terrifying bolt of lightning, so dubbed the 'Wrath of Zeus.'

With war brewing across the Atlantic, the rage was set for Alexander the Human Dynamo to take his place among the new pantheon of heroes.

Since his first encounter with the Nazi's, Sascha has pushed his power significantly. He can channel more power through body, his canon, and no longer requires the caestus to amplify his charge. He's also learned how to launch himself into the air and glide on electrostatic thrust.

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Portrait of a Man of Action

A physically imposing specimen of a man, Alexander stands at a strapping 6 feet tall, weighing in at solid sixteen stone. His long hours at the forge, and tenacious pursuit of physical perfection have left him chiseled and bronzed as if cut from marble.

In demeanor, he is intense but reserved, preferring actions to words, but will display an insatiable curiosity in the face of novelty.

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Motivation: Competition

Whether it be within himself, chasing after his physical ideal, or against a worthy opponent in the ring, Alexander thrives on competition. Any chance to test his mettle and prove his valor will exert a powerful pull upon his psyche.

Motivation: Adventure/Thrillseeeking

Hand in hand with the first motivation, Sascha feels the call of an innate and compelling curiosity. He is enamored of his new abilities, and the emergence of others so uniquely empowered, and won't pass up an opportunity to explore the unknown alongside them.

Psychological Flaw: Hubris

If he can be said to have a singular defect of character, it would be pride. The invincibility of youth, the bravado of boxing, and his preternatural puissance have combined to imbue this fledgling fighter of crime and evil with a certain overconfidence in his own capabilities. His brash impulses to court danger and adrenaline make him more than inclined to leap into situations he in not entirely equipped to handle on his own.

Power Loss: Zeus Cannon

While Sascha's body continues to increase it's quantum generation of electrical current, it is still limited to physical touch. In order to project this energy into ranged bolts of lightning, he requires the use of a special unique focusing weapon to channel and amplify the current. This weapon takes the form of a steampunk looking hand-canon that may be disarmed, or confiscated.

The Vanguard would see the war through to the end, and Sascha fought valiantly for the next 5 years. When footage aired of the first bomb hitting Hiroshima, he couldn't help but whisper in awe and horror "Null was right."

After the war he returned to New York. Old Nik, equally horrified at the atomic bomb, ceased working on his death ray designs for the government, canceling his military contracts. He was able to continue his work at Wardenclyff Tower thanks in part to private sector communications contracts. In 1946 Tesla revolutionized the world when he introduced ENIAC, the worlds first computer, and again in 1950 when he introduced cellular telephones, briefcase sized devices linked to local transmission towers which soon popped up across the nation. He was 93 years old at the time.

As for Sascha, the electrical strongman always was more showman than scientist, and with the help of a shrewd agent, started going by Alexander and released a book about his experiences in the war. The Vanguard was an embellished biopic, though it omitted many classified details, including any mention of April or the Imageria. As for the former, he rarely talked about her even with the other members of the Vanguard, but deep down he took her leaving pretty hard. He covered up his grief by immersing himself in the celebrity lifestyle, dating several Hollywood actresses. His fame and strongman good looks lead to motion picture deals, including a movie based on the book in which he played himself. His breakout was the lead role in Samson and Delilah, the highest grossing film of 1949 alongside Hedy Lamarr whom he dated casually from 1948-1950. He was predictably terrible as an actor, though that didn't matter as much back then, but he worked in the industry for eight years, his final film the 1955 hit The King of Olympus in which he played Zeus in brilliant technicolor. When the Vietnam war broke out, he was hungry for a return to action, rejoining the Vanguard when called upon until 1958 when an aging Tesla bade him return to Wardenclyff.

When he arrived, Alexander found Old Nik, now truly ancient at 101 years of age stalking about his lab with a manic vigor uncanny for his years. The scientist went on to explain that Sascha's own abilities and the revelations of the Imageria had opened up new vistas and possibilities. He had applied his ideas to the wireless intercontinental transmissions for voice and images, next was matter itself. The experiment was small scale, and would send Alexander 100 feet across the room to a waiting receiving chamber. The test failed to do anything the first time. Tragedy struck however as Tesla was making adjustments inside the transmitting chamber. At his request Sacha (Old Nik always used his Serbian name) activated a circuit on the control panel. Suddenly the machine sprang to life, and Nikolai Tesla was struck by an arc of electricity, vaporizing into thin air. To Alexander's knowledge he never materialized and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. To Alexander's surprised Tesla had named him sole heir, leaving him Wardenclyff and ownership over all of his patents. Unable to decipher or do much with the latter, Alexander sold many of the less dangerous ones off to the government or private companies, and moved most of Wardenclyff's contraptions into permanent storage before the place burned to the ground in 1959.

In the new decade, with a resurgence of interest in Parahumans and "superheroes", Sascha returned to the costumed life. With the help of a brilliant marketing man at SCDP, he changed his persona to Dynaman, his earlier moniker being deemed quaint in these modern times. Changing out his strongman leotard for sleek jumpsuit, and donating his now vestigial Zeus canon to the Smithsonian, at the age of 45 as a hero reborn!

When the Grade rating was instituted, Alexander passed on becoming a "super-soldier", electing to keep his autonomy as a Grade 3. He'd never really felt comfortable in the regimented military world, but his history in the war and current celebrity made it easier for him than most. Where other costumed parahumans focus on mundane crime or license their protection to municipalities, Dynaman operates independently. Mostly this is an extension of his celebrity life, appearing before the cameras and occasionally zapping by to put the fear of God into criminals. Primarily though he acts on call to help with the rising rate of so-called "super-villainy." For the first couple years he hung his metaphorical cape in Manhattan but has recently been attracted to the glitz and glamour of Swinging London. Yeah baby!

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Armored Magnetodynamic Powersuit (AMPsuit)

A year ago, in the aftermath of a fight with his arch-nemeses the Eastern-Bloc duo called Hammer and Sickle in which he was pushed to the breaking point, Alexander made a shocking discovery...his powers had begun to grow beyond his control. It started small at first, an accidental arc here, some ambient static there, but soon his energy generation began to slowly burn up his own body from the inside. It seemed he had reached the limit of what even a parahuman could safely channel. Frightened and desperate for help, he turned to an old flame, the recently divorced Lamarr. Though her star had faded from Hollywood, she was just as brilliant as ever. Working together, along with some help from some of Tesla's own archived notes about Sascha's condition, the two were able to devise a solution: a wearable device that could siphon off a portion of his power and store it in constantly alternating quantum capacitors. As a welcome side effect, this siphoned energy could be used to synergistically amplify his own output, making him that much stronger.

Alexander built the device into a shielded breastplate, but he didn't stop there. Realizing that at age 50 he'd lost some of his youthful strength, he set about seeking a technological solution. Utilizing the latest in robotics research with some generous help from Helioman, he constructed a retractable exoskeleton; stored within the breastplate, it can deploy as thousands of magnetically charged scales forming into an armored suit that augments his strength and stamina past even the glory days of his pugilistic puissance. Thus has the Human Dynamo entered the Space Age!

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Super Ego

Middle Age has done relatively little to mellow out the dynamic strongman. Sure he's lost some of his youthful vigor to the vagaries of age but he is still a specimen of strength and stamina. His jawline is as rugged as ever and his hair shows only the slightest bit of salt and pepper. The years have tempered his brash tendencies into a more savvy approach, no doubt due to his years of Hollywood fetes with the jet set.

Now he cultivates a more composed swagger, an air befitting a veteran and celebrity of his stature, utilizing his silverback status to great effect with the younger mod squad. His persona is one part leading man, one part weathered cowboy, with an everyman appeal and the kind of confidence that only comes from being comfortable with power.

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Motivation: Responsibility

Alexander is very aware of his status on the world stage. He isn't driven by a need for justice, or vengeance, or even simple altruism. It's not that he doesn't believe in doing the right thing for it's own sake, but that compass is secondary to the sense that those with power are obligated to exercise it on behalf of those without.

Motivation: Thrill-seeking

This aspect hasn't changed much over the years. The rush of running headlong into danger is not something so easily forgotten to those who crave its caress. Fame and celebrity, these are nice perks to have, but they pale before the visceral thrill of testing one's mettle when the stakes are real.

Containment Breach!

Years of pushing his power has finally begun to show side effects. Fortunately his newly designed breastplate is able to contain and harmlessly siphon off any excess energy output, but it's merely a treatment, not a cure. If he should ever remove the chest unit, not only does he lose access to its power amplification, but his body will slowly start to overload. 24 hours after removing the harness, he will unleash an uncontrolled Overcharge burst attack on everything around him. After 48 hours the discharge will occur every 12 hours. After 72 every 6, and so on until on the 7th day he will be in a constant state of uncontrollable discharge until the chest unit is reattached.

Celebrity

While celebrity status and wealth carry a number of perks and benefits they also complicate matters. The peace and quiet of anonymity is rarely so appreciated as when it becomes all but impossible. Fans, stalkers, paparazzi, everyone hoping for a tiny piece of you. Going to the grocery store becomes a chore when one is inundated with requests for autographs, photographs, and more illicit solicitations. And of course one must always be gracious to the adoring public in these situations, for if there is one thing it loves more than a rising star, it's a falling one. Fortune is a boon, but fame can often be a complicating burden, always analyzed under a microscope and subject at any moment to the kangaroo court of public opinion.

Nemeses: Hammer and Sickle

Russian fraternal twins, both genetically augmented super soldiers armed with special weapons. Hammer is a powerhouse of a woman wearing ornate armor and wielding an oversized electrically charged maul. One of the strongest parahumans on the planet, though she cannot fly the prodigious puissance of her legs allow her to jump for miles, creating massive shockwaves when she lands.

Her brother Sickle is an assassin who has been altered for uncanny speed. he wields a pair of massive oversized curved blades, said to made from a near indestructible meteorite metal. Built into the hilt of the sickles are high frequency generators that vibrate the blades millions of times per second letting them cut through steel and stone like butter. In combat he is a whirling dervish, not quite as fast on the ground as Alexander but more maneuverable and more difficult to target.

Both serve the Soviet Union, true faith believers in the dream of a worker's paradise, and are dedicated to bringing down the corrupt and greedy Western world that has lost its way to the evils of unfettered capitalism.

:The screen lightens, the black becoming the grey rectangular grid of a glass and steel of a high rise. The camera is close, in the shadow of the structure and scrolling upward. It begins at a moderate clip, but soon picks up speed, faster and faster, building up a palpable sense of momentum. Suddenly it is above the building, the claustrophobic closeness exploding into open space and a feeling of expansion and elevation. The camera slows at it's apex and then pauses, as if drawing in breath to behold the beauty below. A vast urban jungle sprawls beyond as far as the eye can see, and in the distance the angry red eye of the setting Sun hangs low on the horizon, the city grid cutting into the light with sharp contrast. At the edge of the roof, atop the monolithic tower now below, stands a lone figure His back is turned, his body a black silhouette rising from the skyline. As the camera begins to hone in on this figure, slowly, smoothly, a voiceover narration begins.:

"You've no doubt heard of MK-Ultra. Maybe you've even heard of the lesser known Edgewood experiments, or perhaps Project 112. But no one has heard of Echidna. Like the great beast of mythology, Echidna was intended to spawn countless monsters, under the guise of super-soldier R&D. We never knew who was really behind the project, Massive Dynamic, Renraku, Biotechnica, Militech, could've been any or all of them. They recruited from the military; that's how I signed on. Of course none of us knew what we were really signing on for...we were young, desperate, naive. Most didn't survive, and on my bad days I wonder if they were the lucky ones."

"The experiments were excruciating. Bleeding-edge experimental nootropic drugs like Cortexiphan were combined with selective gene activation and neural implants designed to induce and amplify latent human psionic potential; they called it "psybernetics." They transformed us into living weapons, psionic soldiers to fight against threats both foreign and domestic...or to become them. The blackest of black ops. Eventually watching the others die horribly was more than I could take. So I snapped. Destroyed the lab. Escaped into the night. Slipped through their grasp."

"Every day it seems reports of new enhanced hit the news. The Powers that Be wanted to usher in a new era of warfare, but the offspring of their hubris has turned against them. Echidna has scattered, hiding in the cracks and the long shadows cast by their bright LED promises of a world made better by the superior man. Now I hunt them through the fringes of this brave new world. Some heroes shine in saturated daylight, others stalk the neon night. You will find me in between, in the gloaming of dusk."

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Power Descriptions

It is debatable whether or not Corporal Seth Stryker did indeed survive the ordeals of Project Echidna...or indeed if he ever existed at all. He may have been a hapless homeless "volunteer" for all anyone knows. What is true is that the program was successful in activating the latent psionic potential of a small handful of test subjects, at the high cost of their sanity. To cope with his experiences Seth has dissociated from himself, literally, using the enhanced power of his own mind, and now believes and experiences his existence as if he were the protagonist of a third-person VR MMO game/simulation he calls KRONOS (no such actual game exists). His powers have both influenced and enabled this insanity, and shaped his psychic power in unique and unprecedented ways. Charon as a "character" is a powerful telepath and telekinetic, but from the perspective of the observing "Player", a number of meta-abilities are layered in, completing the delusion. In effect he has two "categories" of abilities, however both stem from the same singular source, and all have the [Psionic] descriptor.

In addition, one of his brain implants is is a fully functional mobile device, capable of making and receiving voice and video calls, connecting to wireless networks, and downloading and running various apps, including mobile games (which Seth experiences as "mini-games" on his "HUD").

"Character" Powers:

Psychic Sustenance:
Seth is sustained by his own psionic energy, and is immune to his own powers.

Psychokinetic Shield:
An invisible force field noticeable by a distinctive low hum. It flares with crackling white psychic "electricity" when struck.

Psychokinetic Flight:
Also noticeable by a throbbing hum, while arcs of energy spark across his body.

Psychic Extraction:
At close range Seth can psychokinetically grapple an opponent and forcibly read their mind. This is excruciatingly painful to weaker targets and may cause irreparable damage.

Psychokinesis:
Standard Issue Mind Over Matter. Visually, arcs of white psychic "electricity" crackle from his hands and around his target when using this power but the arcs don't interact with either physiology or technology the way actual electricity would.

Psychokinetic Sabot:
A brilliant bullet-like bolt that leaves distortion ripples through the air in its wake. Can be fired as a single armor piercing projectile or split into multiple flechettes.

Astral Projection: "Camera Control":
Perhaps the root of Charon's psychosis. A form of permanent clairvoyance, his senses of sight and hearing exist outside of his body. He sees himself as if from an invisible eye in the sky, which he can control and move as if it were the "camera" in a third person video game, though limited by being "locked on" to his "avatar" within about 30 feet. This does let him peek around corners, and have a high degree of "situational awareness" giving him an advantage against other "players" who are "stuck in first person perspective."

Psychic Awareness: "HUD/Mini-map":
Again interpreting his senses through the cognitive lens of playing a game, Charon is able to detect people, objects, and possible threats in a wide radius around him. His mind interprets this information and he perceives it as a Heads-Up Display with a small mini-map in the corner of his vision. This also let's him see his own "health levels", know when he has "leveled up", and will display information overlaying any target he has "scanned" (see below).

Psychometric Scan: "Highlight Weak Points":
The ability to "lock on" and "scan" a target, learning it's abilities and "highlighting" any potential weak spots, which show up as glowing red holographic overlays on his HUD. In actuality he is psionically creating these "weaknesses" but the effect is subjectively indistinguishable to his perspective. He has different modes for living and unliving (i.e. robotic) targets. It requires a certain amount of time being "locked on" for this power to be fully effective and fast-moving targets may prove resitant; however this ability is both subtle and insidious meaning targets may not even realize they've been compromised until it's too late...

Psychometric Vision:
Similar to "Detective Vision" or "Cyber Vision" in games like the Batman: Arkahm series, or Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In reality this is a form of advanced psychometry that expands upon his permanent clairvoyance. He is able to detect targets through walls, pinpoint concealed foes or other "secrets", and even reconstruct what happened in an area by "investigating" the scene. This incredible sensory awareness also makes it triflingly easy to sneak around and avoid detection.

Psychometabolism: "Regenerative Health":
Seth is able to psionically regenerate his tissue from nearly any wound, but much like in many modern third person "cover-shooter" games like Gears of War, Uncharted, etc., he must be out of the line of fire and not taking ongoing damage for this healing factor to kick in.

Psychoportation: "Fast Travel":
Because sometimes you have to get all the way across the "map" and actually traversing the distance in real time would take too long and hold up the flow of the story and gameplay.

Ego Fortress: "Player Agency": When speaking with other "PCs" or "NPCs" his "camera" zooms in, as if viewing a "cutscene" a la RPGs like the Mass Effect or Witcher series When interacting with others, he will see their dialogue pop up on his HUD, and his own thoughts and possible responses will display as well. His dissociation from himself allows him to be removed from the normal emotional reactions induced by social interactions, allowing him total choice in how he responds.

Astral Phylactery: "Respawn":
If he is slain in the course of the "game", Charon will respawn in a random location nearby with full health after a 1 minute black "loading screen" with a respawn countdown that he can see in the center. This can be overcome by nullifying his Remote Sensing (assuming that ability is known), effectively "glitching" out his "display".

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Complications

Motivation: Doing Good

While Seth's grip on reality has been shattered, he still sees himself as a protagonist in a grand game, one which does include other players, avoiding the dangers of complete solipsism. He might be a dark hero, and a broken one, but a hero he is nonetheless.

Motivation: Revenge

Having suffered through the torture and experimentation of Project Echidna, he will obsessively seek out any lead, any scrap of information, and any opportunity to take down the shadowy cabal, and their monstrous minions.

Delusional

And yes, he is bat**** crazy. Most of the time you wouldn't know it, as he "plays his character" fairly straight, but every now and again he'll be muttering to himself about having "leveled up" and where he should "spend his xp", refer to missions as "raids" or enemies as "boss fights." This can sometimes make social interactions with him somewhat strange. Speaking of which...

Grotesque

Seth doesn't exactly look well. The experiments performed on him affected his appearance. His skin is scarred and he has several visible cybernetic implants sticking out of his skull. He's not going to win any awards for Hunkiest Hero, and his "Modern Prometheus" look is often disturbing to the average law-abiding citizen.

Anosmia

A side effect of his clairvoyance...Seth has no sense of smell or taste. He might unknowingly walk into a room filled with methane for example and not know it until it was too late and he keels over (only to respawn nearby).

Power Loss: Glitch

Someone able to detect and disrupt his remote sensing will effectively "crash his screen" rendering him unaware and effectively powerless.

Holding Back

Much like the literary Man in the Iron Mask, Charon's helmet is locked onto his head...and for good reason. Originally designed as a psionic siphon to drain his power, it acts as a limiter now that he's escaped from his containment pod. Should it ever be removed (something he is unable to do on his own), his power level will spike to 14 and he gains an additional 40 Power Points to distribute. In addition his psychosis will be relieved as he regains his mental equilibrium, and his other mental complications will . Doing so is dangerous however, and after the scene he may incur additional complications up to and including power loss.

Enemy: Project Echidna

...and all of its spawn (see Rogue's Gallery below).

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The Final Boss:Typhon

While Echidna was the Mother of Monsters, Typhon was the father. The shadowy head of Echidna, it is rumored that all of the project's experiments were seeded by his own genetic material. Possesses vast psychic power, including the ability to dampen or disrupt other psionic powers. Appears as an ubermench, the ultimate human specimen, with a Luciferian vibe.

The Right Hand:Orthrus

Typhon's first and greatest success. A "physical psychic", he has an advanced nervous system, including a second sacral neural cluster that grants him unparalleled physical combat capability and reaction speed. Typhon's personal bodyguard. Appearance unknown: is never seen outside of his armor and never speaks.

The Lieutenants:

Cerberus

Three identical twins who share a single consciousness. Individually have enhanced senses and awareness with weak telekinesis but can merge into a single giant sized and incredibly powerful 3 faced gestalt entity with triple the power. Typhon's foremost trackers and "attack dogs." Appear as athletic humans until merged.

Hydra

Powerful mind controller. Her astral form travels from host to host and her many "heads" are in fact her network of dominated sleeper agents. Those who have been possessed by her are more susceptible to her powers later. Almost never seen, her true form is a crippled and blind.

Ladon

A deadly pyrokinetic with powerful regenerative capabilities. Has a monstrous demonic appearance, like that of an oni or efreet.

The Mooks:Chimera

All manner of lesser genetic abominations, most of them physically deformed in countless ways, or alternately, capable of transforming from a human form into something monstrous and terrifying. Most of the time not a serious threat to any single super, but a swarm of them can be dangerous and of course the is the occasional mini-boss level experimental creatures. Think Zoanoids from the Guyver anime. The common cannon fodder of Echidna.

:The screen lightens, the black becoming the grey rectangular grid of a glass and steel of a high rise. The camera is close, in the shadow of the structure and scrolling upward. It begins at a moderate clip, but soon picks up speed, faster and faster, building up a palpable sense of momentum. Suddenly it is above the building, the claustrophobic closeness exploding into open space and a feeling of expansion and elevation. The camera slows at it's apex and then pauses, as if drawing in breath to behold the beauty below. A vast urban jungle sprawls beyond as far as the eye can see, and in the distance the angry red eye of the setting Sun hangs low on the horizon, the city grid cutting into the light with sharp contrast. At the edge of the roof, atop the monolithic tower now below, stands a lone figure His back is turned, his body a black silhouette rising from the skyline. As the camera begins to hone in on this figure, slowly, smoothly, a voiceover narration begins.:

"You've no doubt heard of MK-Ultra. Maybe you've even heard of the lesser known Edgewood experiments, or perhaps Project 112. But no one has heard of Echidna. Like the great beast of mythology, Echidna was intended to spawn countless monsters, under the guise of super-soldier R&D. We never knew who was really behind the project, Massive Dynamic, Renraku, Biotechnica, Militech, could've been any or all of them. They recruited from the military; that's how I signed on. Of course none of us knew what we were really signing on for...we were young, desperate, naive. Most didn't survive, and on my bad days I wonder if they were the lucky ones."

"The experiments were excruciating. Bleeding-edge experimental nootropic drugs like Cortexiphan were combined with selective gene activation and neural implants designed to induce and amplify latent human psionic potential; they called it "psybernetics." They transformed us into living weapons, psionic soldiers to fight against threats both foreign and domestic...or to become them. The blackest of black ops. Eventually watching the others die horribly was more than I could take. So I snapped. Destroyed the lab. Escaped into the night. Slipped through their grasp."

"Every day it seems reports of new enhanced hit the news. The Powers that Be wanted to usher in a new era of warfare, but the offspring of their hubris has turned against them. Echidna has scattered, hiding in the cracks and the long shadows cast by their bright LED promises of a world made better by the superior man. Now I hunt them through the fringes of this brave new world. Some heroes shine in saturated daylight, others stalk the neon night. You will find me in between, in the gloaming of dusk."

Quote:

Power Descriptions

It is debatable whether or not Corporal Seth Stryker did indeed survive the ordeals of Project Echidna...or indeed if he ever existed at all. He may have been a hapless homeless "volunteer" for all anyone knows. What is true is that the program was successful in activating the latent psionic potential of a small handful of test subjects, at the high cost of their sanity. To cope with his experiences Seth has dissociated from himself, literally, using the enhanced power of his own mind, and now believes and experiences his existence as if he were the protagonist of a third-person VR MMO game/simulation he calls KRONOS (no such actual game exists). His powers have both influenced and enabled this insanity, and shaped his psychic power in unique and unprecedented ways. Charon as a "character" is a powerful telepath and telekinetic, but from the perspective of the observing "Player", a number of meta-abilities are layered in, completing the delusion. In effect he has two "categories" of abilities, however both stem from the same singular source, and all have the [Psionic] descriptor.

In addition, one of his brain implants is is a fully functional mobile device, capable of making and receiving voice and video calls, connecting to wireless networks, and downloading and running various apps, including mobile games (which Seth experiences as "mini-games" on his "HUD").

"Character" Powers:

Psychic Sustenance:
Seth is sustained by his own psionic energy, and is immune to his own powers.

Psychokinetic Shield:
An invisible force field noticeable by a distinctive low hum. It flares with crackling white psychic "electricity" when struck.

Psychokinetic Flight:
Also noticeable by a throbbing hum, while arcs of energy spark across his body.

Psychic Extraction:
At close range Seth can psychokinetically grapple an opponent and forcibly read their mind. This is excruciatingly painful to weaker targets and may cause irreparable damage.

Psychokinesis:
Standard Issue Mind Over Matter. Visually, arcs of white psychic "electricity" crackle from his hands and around his target when using this power but the arcs don't interact with either physiology or technology the way actual electricity would.

Psychokinetic Sabot:
A brilliant bullet-like bolt that leaves distortion ripples through the air in its wake. Can be fired as a single armor piercing projectile or split into multiple flechettes.

Astral Projection: "Camera Control":
Perhaps the root of Charon's psychosis. A form of permanent clairvoyance, his senses of sight and hearing exist outside of his body. He sees himself as if from an invisible eye in the sky, which he can control and move as if it were the "camera" in a third person video game, though limited by being "locked on" to his "avatar" within about 30 feet. This does let him peek around corners, and have a high degree of "situational awareness" giving him an advantage against other "players" who are "stuck in first person perspective."

Psychic Awareness: "HUD/Mini-map":
Again interpreting his senses through the cognitive lens of playing a game, Charon is able to detect people, objects, and possible threats in a wide radius around him. His mind interprets this information and he perceives it as a Heads-Up Display with a small mini-map in the corner of his vision. This also let's him see his own "health levels", know when he has "leveled up", and will display information overlaying any target he has "scanned" (see below).

Psychometric Scan: "Highlight Weak Points":
The ability to "lock on" and "scan" a target, learning it's abilities and "highlighting" any potential weak spots, which show up as glowing red holographic overlays on his HUD. In actuality he is psionically creating these "weaknesses" but the effect is subjectively indistinguishable to his perspective. He has different modes for living and unliving (i.e. robotic) targets. It requires a certain amount of time being "locked on" for this power to be fully effective and fast-moving targets may prove resitant; however this ability is both subtle and insidious meaning targets may not even realize they've been compromised until it's too late...

Psychometric Vision:
Similar to "Detective Vision" or "Cyber Vision" in games like the Batman: Arkahm series, or Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In reality this is a form of advanced psychometry that expands upon his permanent clairvoyance. He is able to detect targets through walls, pinpoint concealed foes or other "secrets", and even reconstruct what happened in an area by "investigating" the scene. This incredible sensory awareness also makes it triflingly easy to sneak around and avoid detection.

Psychometabolism: "Regenerative Health":
Seth is able to psionically regenerate his tissue from nearly any wound, but much like in many modern third person "cover-shooter" games like Gears of War, Uncharted, etc., he must be out of the line of fire and not taking ongoing damage for this healing factor to kick in.

Psychoportation: "Fast Travel":
Because sometimes you have to get all the way across the "map" and actually traversing the distance in real time would take too long and hold up the flow of the story and gameplay.

Ego Fortress: "Player Agency": When speaking with other "PCs" or "NPCs" his "camera" zooms in, as if viewing a "cutscene" a la RPGs like the Mass Effect or Witcher series When interacting with others, he will see their dialogue pop up on his HUD, and his own thoughts and possible responses will display as well. His dissociation from himself allows him to be removed from the normal emotional reactions induced by social interactions, allowing him total choice in how he responds.

Astral Phylactery: "Respawn":
If he is slain in the course of the "game", Charon will respawn in a random location nearby with full health after a 1 minute black "loading screen" with a respawn countdown that he can see in the center. This can be overcome by nullifying his Remote Sensing (assuming that ability is known), effectively "glitching" out his "display".

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Complications

Motivation: Doing Good

While Seth's grip on reality has been shattered, he still sees himself as a protagonist in a grand game, one which does include other players, avoiding the dangers of complete solipsism. He might be a dark hero, and a broken one, but a hero he is nonetheless.

Motivation: Revenge

Having suffered through the torture and experimentation of Project Echidna, he will obsessively seek out any lead, any scrap of information, and any opportunity to take down the shadowy cabal, and their monstrous minions.

Delusional

And yes, he is bat**** crazy. Most of the time you wouldn't know it, as he "plays his character" fairly straight, but every now and again he'll be muttering to himself about having "leveled up" and where he should "spend his xp", refer to missions as "raids" or enemies as "boss fights." This can sometimes make social interactions with him somewhat strange. Speaking of which...

Grotesque

Seth doesn't exactly look well. The experiments performed on him affected his appearance. His skin is mottled and semi-transparent, and he has several visible cybernetic implants sticking out of his skull. He's not going to win any awards for Hunkiest Hero, and his "Modern Prometheus" look is often disturbing to the average law-abiding citizen.

Anosmia

A side effect of his clairvoyance...Seth has no sense of smell or taste. He might unknowingly walk into a room filled with methane for example and not know it until it was too late and he keels over (only to respawn nearby).

Power Loss: Glitch

Someone able to detect and disrupt his remote sensing will effectively "crash his screen" rendering him unaware and effectively powerless.

Enemy: Project Echidna

...and all of its spawn (see Rogue's Gallery below).

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The Final Boss:Typhon

While Echidna was the Mother of Monsters, Typhon was the father. The shadowy head of Echidna, it is rumored that all of the project's experiments were seeded by his own genetic material. Possesses vast psychic power, including the ability to dampen or disrupt other psionic powers.

The Right Hand:Orthrus

Typhon's first and greatest success. A "physical psychic", he has an advanced nervous system, including a second sacral neural cluster that grants him unparalleled physical combat capability and reaction speed. Typhon's personal bodyguard.

The Lieutenants:

Cerberus

Three identical twins who share a single consciousness. Can merge into a single and incredibly powerful 3 headed gestalt entity. Typhon's foremost "attack dogs."

Hydra

Powerful mind controller. Her many "heads" are in fact her network of dominated sleeper agents.

Ladon

A deadly pyrokinetic with powerful regenerative capabilities.

The Mooks:Chimera

All manner of lesser genetic abominations, most of them physically deformed in countless ways, or alternately, capable of transforming from a human form into something monstrous and terrifying. Most of the time not a serious threat to any single super, but a swarm of them can be dangerous. The common cannon fodder of Echidna.

Glenn Gallagher was born to Irish immigrant parents in Chicago Illinois on Good Friday 1886. His father Seamus was a butcher and died in an accident at The Yards, the infamous meatpacking district, when Glenn was 8 years old. His father had been a hard-drinker and a gambler, and had some debts with the wrong people. To make ends meet and settle her late husbands debt, his mother Mary was forces to turn to prostitution. Eight years later a John gave her Syphilis, which would've killed her if the mercury she was injected with for treatment hadn't poisoned her first. Thus Glenn found himself an orphan at the age of 16, plenty old enough to work.

His life was hard and rugged and it chiseled him, body and soul, to match. He'd done a fair bit of brawling even as boy, usually in defense of his mother's good name, and it turned out he had a natural talent. By day he worked the docks, loading unloading the many ships of Lake Michigan. By night he boxed, bare-knuckled, and developed a reputation for his ability to take a beating and never stop swinging. They called him "The Glutton" as in Glutton for Punishment.

All that changed when he met Fiona. A fire-headed beauty, she was also first generation Irish American, daughter of the local constable. She soothed his grieving spirit and brought light into his life for the first time. He gave up fighting at her insistence and he was promoted to dock supervisor. They married in the Spring of 1910 and a year later they had a son, Gael.

Things were idyllic enough for awhile, even with the outbreak of the Great War in Europe. Work was steady and even plentiful after the U.S. jumped into the fray in early 2017. By October of the following year it became clear that the war was about to end. Alas returning troops had brought the Spanish Influenza epidemic back via Boston, a mutated and even more deadly strain swept the nation. So incredibly virulent was the virus that Fiona was dead within 8 hours of coming down with a fever. Much to Glenn and Gael's grief there was no time for a priest to give her last rites, and she was denied a Catholic burial when authorities confiscated her body for mass cremation.

Only his son kept Glenn from drowning himself in a bottle after that, but in truth he wanted to die. Raging against the world and blaming god, The Glutton returned to the ring with a vengeance. The pain of his bruises, the cracks in his ribs, the taste of blood in his mouth, he barely felt any of it anymore. Then one night, beaten to hamburger, he stumbled his way back home where once again Gael would be waiting with a thread and needle to patch him up, but he never made it home that night. Cutting through the filth of a dark alley, Glenn was set upon by seven cultists in black hoods and wielding blackjacks. He broke one's neck and knocked out a second but in his battered state he was soon overwhelmed and laid unconscious.

When he finally awoke he was chained to a large stone slab, naked, bathed in torchlight, and surrounded by the 6 remaining cultists and their leader, chanting unutterable incantations. The torches flickered as a dark power began to awaken, it's dark unknowable dreams shifting towards our reality. Glenn felt it inside him, like a hunger gnawing and clawing at his insides. The pain was unimaginable, like nothing he'd ever felt, which was really saying something. Deep down he knew that he was facing a fate worse than death, his very soul devoured to make room for a new host. His survival instincts kicked in, for all the good that they were worth and he began to fight back against the ritual with all of the willpower he had left. Surprised by this last-second show of moxie, the chanting cultists renewed their focus, joining together in their fervent devotion to bring forth their sleeping god...to bring forth the end of the world.

For all his grit, Glenn's fight was a lost cause. His soul would be gone, his body forfeit to fell powers, had it not been for the timely intervention of the Department of Anomalous Investigations. One of their agents had been tracking the cult for months after they'd managed to recover an ancient tome detailing the ritual they needed to incarnate an avatar of the Devourer. The ritual ended, interrupted before the climax by a hail of bullets. The cultists went down, Glenn was rescued, and the membranes between worlds thickened and closed once more...the day was won, or so it seemed. Though not completed, the ritual had touched Glenn to something not of our reality, his soul had brushed against the dreaming madness of an alien intelligence and something had managed to make it through...and it grew inside him.

It didn't take long for the Department to realize what had happened. There were some on the board who wanted to incinerate him immediately. Some of their occultists wanted to vivisect him. In the end Glenn swayed their minds with a passionate plea on account of his son, and a very apparent passion for taking the fight back to the ****ers who'd done this to him, and all of their unnatural ilk.

Glenn is an absolute bear of a man. Standing near two meters tall, broad-shouldered and weighing in at 20 stone, he looks every bit the brute. Years of dock work has corded his muscles into thick ropes, and are just as rough and knotted. His head is bald but his face is framed by two thick orange mutton chops and punctuated by two strikingly green eyes. He has scars on his eyebrows and lips where they were split from fighting and several on his arms and chest from the docks. His frame is barrel-chested but his seeming beer-belly holds a horrific secret.

Despite his thuggish countenance, Glenn is a man of honor, who takes pride in his professionalism. He's not the type to start a barroom brawl and won't react to taunts unless they're willing to put down cash. He fights because he needs the money and he's good at it, but not for the glory. He cares most in the world for his son, and laments the loss of his wife. While he usually hides it decently enough, he's quite terrified of what's happened to him.

Eldritch Transmogrification
Glenn's body has been...changed by his brush with "divinity", transformed by arcane energies into a suitable avatar for a great Old One. He no longer requires food, water, or even air to breathe, but is nonetheless constantly consumed with a ravenous hunger from his connection to the Devourer. He's become supernaturally strong, incredibly resilient to harm, and quite possibly immortal. With his unholy strength he is also capable of covering ground quite quickly, with hands hard enough to find purchase in sheer stone.

Maw of the Devourer
What seems to be a healthy beer belly beneath Glenn's vest is in fact a bulging maw of muscle embedded in his abdomen. This mouth is massive, and lined with rows of razor sharp incisors. Where Glenn's internal organs would normally be is not a gaping gullet that leads directly to the dormant deity's digestion. As such Glenn is capable of devouring any substance without harm...glass, stone, metal, even radioactive isotopes. The revelation of his condition is quite horrific to most.

Tentacle Tongue
From within this gaping orifice a mighty tentacle can extrude, like an unholy tongue, a full 60 feet. This tentacle is just as supernaturally strong as Glenn himself, and is coated in a toxic slime. The end of the tentacle splits open into six subtentacles lined with teeth like a vampire squid. Hidden within this barbed mantle are six sets of sharp mandibles surrounding a second maw sporting vicious gnashing fangs and a thirst for blood

Toxic Lick
The mucus-like saliva dripping from the tentacle-tongue contains millions of microscopic nematocysts capable of injecting a paralyzing toxin.

Unholy Halitosis
With a sickening belch the maw can exhale a cloud of gas so utterly noxious that all but the most resolute of mind will be overcome by convulsive retching.

Vile Bile
As if the previous ability wasn't disgusting enough, the maw can vomit forth a viscous ball of black tar-like phlegm from the bowels of the Beast. This corrosive substance will start to dissolve and predigest any matter it comes into contact with.

Vampiric Bite
Despite his inhuman durability, Glenn's body no longer heals on its own. Instead, Glenn must eat. Anything and everything he eats is absorbed by the dormant Devourer which in turn feeds the connection keeping Glenn alive when he should by all scientific knowledge be deceased.

Motivation: Justice/Vengeance
Glenn harbors a deep and abiding hatred of the demimonde, no doubt informed by his self-loathing at what he's become.

Responsibility/Secret
Glenn's foremost complication is the need to look after his son, who by design remains in the dark about his father's condition. Fortunately the Department is able to provide a nanny to look after his son while he is on assignment but that doesn't make it any easier for him to be away and risking his life. The great and tragic irony of fatherhood is that in order to take care of one's family, one has to be apart from them.

Prejudice
Even within the department there are many who regard Glenn as an enemy in their midst. Notoriously ravenous, nobody wants to sit next to him in the mess hall, for fear of being eaten themselves.

The responsibility to use his powers for good. To protect those weaker than himself. His father will always be his first hero.

Motivation: Thrillseeking

Despite his heroic inclinations, Sebastian isn't above the thrill of competition, especially against a worthy rival.

Celebrity

Bastion is something of a sensation and is often accosted by fans, stalkers, jealous rivals, or those who want to make their reputation by bringing him down.

Enemy: ?

A prep-school rivalry turned full-blown archenemies. While their grudge is well-documented, neither can remember what truly set it off. Some people just inherently rub each other the wrong way, and it escalated from there.

They were happy together, a family, for a time. David was an auto mechanic with his own small, moderately successful shop. His wife, Rachel, worked as a nurse but left her career once their firstborn Samuel was born. Two years later Daemon was born. As they grew the two boys were inseparable. Samuel was the more physical one, while his brother took more after their father, with a head for schematics and mechanical things. For a time, they were happy. The Drakes were devout as a family; even as Detroit gradually crumbled into crime all around them, they never broke faith with the Church, that is until Rachel came down with cancer. It would have been one thing if it had been a mugging. Violent crime, that was the sin of men, but for David it was as though God himself had forsaken them. Daemon was 8 when his mother passed away.

David turned to the bottle, to gambling, his spirit broken, his sons left largely to fend for themselves. Samuel being the older, hardier, more aggressive one, was gradually indoctrinated into the Underworld; there are enumerable uses for children in organized crime and the mob likes to get them started early. It starts with simple lookout duty, then courier work, with the branches of pushing, pimping, and muscle opening up with age, experience, and merit. Daemon was the voice of restraint, trying his best to keep Sam in check, and doing his part to support them by hot-wiring cars and watching his back. Depending on your point of view, the two either came up, or fell down on the mean streets of Detroit. While they had each other, their prospects looked grim. Two more lost boys disappearing in the cracks. Those cracks aren't empty...there are things in those depths, hiding in the shadows, feeding on the forgotten.

The brothers were perfect specimens, the serum only worked during puberty. Something about the growth and hormonal profile, but too young or too old and Extremis would devour the host alive. So the black-site laboratory charged with its experimentation preyed upon the urchins and orphans that nobody would miss. In time they were able to decode what the system was, an extraterrestrial nano-retro-virus that transformed its hosts into techno-organic killing machines. The backers of the black-site, a shadowy alliance of governments and corporations, saw this as fortuitous in the wake of the rising incidence of empowered citizens, and commissioned a cadre of super soldiers decanted from the limited amount of sample they possessed. Samuel and Daemon were in the first wave of the fully weaponized serum, along with 8 others. The system overrode the host's control, so while they were aware of their actions, they were not in control of them. If they weren't on a mission the system kept them sedated, in effective stasis. They spent two years in this living hell, until the entire operation exploded, quite literally, during a conflict with the Legion. Daemon was activated, but Samuel was in stasis when Two detonated, vaporizing the facility, and everything else within a mile. Daemon was only 16.

Rise of the Demon

Once the system went down, so did the control system. For the first time since the infusion he was in control of his own will. For the first time in his life he was alone. He returned home. Soon after rumors and reports began to swirl about some kind of supernatural fiend waging war upon the Underworld of Old Detroit. The rapist who had his genitals cauterized off. The mob boss who killed himself within his impenetrable sanctum. Drug labs burned to ashes.The Demon of Detroit they called him, and he developed a fearsome reputation. For the past year, Daemon has waged his shadow war of vengeance and catharsis against the mobs and street gangs of the inner city.

Psychology

Damaged, rough around the edges, but not yet hardened. Despite his stark morality, Daemon exhibits a classic distrust of authority that manifests as challenge and rebellion, but underneath his mask of bravado he is very frightened by what he has become. On one hand he revels in his rebirth, but is terrified when the system takes control. In those moments he really does feel like he's been possessed by a demon.

Not nearly the lone wolf one might first expect, the loss of first his mother, his brother, and now The Pact has hit him pretty hard, and finding ways to cope has not been easy. His enhancements mean that alcohol and drugs are no longer an option, though he still smokes out of habit. He and Succubus had been having a subdued on-and-off again relationship, but both being damaged goods it was never meant to last, and he tends more often than not to sex for escapism. These affairs rarely last more than a single night. His primary vice is still violence, a visceral outlet for a lifetime of loss.

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Complications

Motivation: Acceptance

With his brother gone, and the Pact destroyed, Daemon lost his last remaining tether and sense of belonging. His transformation has brought him the power to vent his anger, but the insecurity of feeling like a freak. Though he isn't really conscious of his deeper emotions, his desire to fit in will usually subtly lead him to doing the right thing, given the right influences.

Motivation: Vigilantism

Daemon will cross lines that others can't or won't in order to stop those untouchable through legal means. To defeat a demon, you must become a demon yourself.

Hooligan

In many ways, Daemon is his own worst enemy, the chip on his shoulder just the surface of wounds that run so deep, even Extremis couldn't regenerate the damage.

Dependent

When Daemon returned to Chicago after being freed from Extremis control, he found his father was alive after all, now homeless and mentally ill. Daemon had him put in an appropriate shelter, and still checks in on the Old Man regularly, as well as pays the bills for his care.

Hardwired

The serum altered Daemon to be a living weapon of mass murder and destruction. While capable of using his powers on his own, when an outside threat is detected, his own instincts to avoid conflict are overridden by his new programming. At the most extreme he enters a dissociative state until the perceived threat is entirely neutralized. Unfortunately the system is not so great at distinguishing real danger from more benign encroachments.

Doomsday Weapon

The creators of the Extremis serum were thorough indeed in the creation of their shock troops. Should the innate repair functions of the system ever be overloaded, most likely in the event of his death, Daemon would go nova with enough force to level an entire city. It is possible that tampering with or even temporarily shutting down his repair functions might have much the same effect.

Though he parlays his abilities into a supernatural persona, their origins are anything but magical. The ultra-black site he was taken to was experimenting with nano-technoglogy, possibly of extraterrestrial or extra dimensional origin in an attempt to create super soldiers who could be an effective countermeasure to the rising numbers of super powered gods and monsters crowding the planet.

Once injected into a human host the serum goes to work, breaking down organs, building new ones, and using carbon from the atmosphere to generate extremely strong graphene-based structures, rebuilding bone, muscle, and neural tissue to a preprogrammed spec. Even blood plasma is replaced with a solution of free floating nanites. What keeps them powered up is unknown but is postulated to be some kind of zero-point catalyzed nano-fusion. The host no longer requires outside sources of fuel, functioning through highly efficient anaerobic processes. All metabolic waste is converted into more energy and heat, while the system's capacity for tissue repair is nothing short of awe-inducing...

Daemon's body has been altered and augmented down to the nanoscale, blurring the lines between organic and mechanical. Strength, speed, and durability are all significantly beyond any normal human limit. Likewise his nervous system has been enhanced: Aside from being hardened against outside manipulation, an autonomic adaptive combat protocol has override capability over the host. When operating under mission parameters or any kind of perceived threat this programming is activated, almost like an organic move-by-wire system. In other words, the host becomes hardwired to fight and adapt to any circumstance or environment.

Because the serum seems to have been created to take down other metahumans, its design has been fully weaponized with a number of incredibly lethal offensive systems:

Nano-Talons:
When close-quarters single-target lethality is required, mono-molecular-tipped talons extrude from the tips of the fingers. Moreover these talons are coated with specialized nanites. Upon contact they surge into the wound where they proceed to teach themselves to the target's central and peripheral nervous systems. This can be parlayed into a number of effects, such as crippling the target with debilitating agony, Disrupting nerve signals, or even outright hijacking control over the host.

Plasma Projection:
For dealing with large numbers of hostile forces, he is capable of filling his lungs with immensely hot ionized plasma, breathing fire and death like the dragons of myth.

Exothermic Grip:
If he is capable of finding solid purchase upon a target, he can exothermically channel plasma heat directly through his hands, rendering even the hardest target into slag within a matter of moments.

Since we could first turn our eyes towards the heavens, mankind has worshiped the Sun. Bringer of light, warmth, and light, every morning the dawn chased the horrors of the primeval night back into the shadows. The god of the Sun has had many names throughout history.

From time to time, this deity has sent a seed of itself into one most worthy. Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, and almost always a child, one innocent of heart to be the vessel and anchor to the power of the godhead and giving rise to great myths and legends across time. The Egyptians had the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun and worshiped Sun's champion Amun-Ra. The Greeks called him Helios, the Romans Sol-Invictus. The Japanese had their god-Empress Amaterasu, The Hindus Surya, and the Aztecs Huītzilōpōchtli.

Since the days of Zarathustra men have known another truth, and that is the light must always be balanced by darkness. Ormazd had Ahriman, Ra fought Apep, and the Aztecs lived in fear that Tezcaitlapoca would triumph and swallow the sun, for whom they sacrificed thousands. The god of darkness has just as many names and as the ages turn, she periodically awakens to birth her monstrous children into the world...

Now, with the dawn of the superhuman, the Sun's champion has come again. A new form for a new age, as once more the ancient Adversary awakens. Once more, a worthy vessel is needed...